‘China is still decades behind leading nations’
Duncan Hooper talks to Zhang Zhiqiang on learning to play rugby with Leicester’s finest
Zhang Zhiqiang’s introduction to the UK was when the chauffeurdriven ride sent by Leicester Tigers to pick him up from Heathrow was rear-ended by a red double decker bus seconds after leaving the airport. But that bump 20 years ago was nothing to the bruisings he would receive in training as he honed his skills alongside some of England’s toughest World Cup-winning stars including Martin Johnson, Neil Back and Lewis Moody.
Zhang, now 47, was then fly-half and captain of China’s national team and had been sent to England to bring back skills and techniques to strengthen the domestic game. He recalled those times in an interview to mark the 50th anniversary of China-UK full diplomatic relations.
“I went to Leicester because Leicester was very well known in England,” Zhang said. “Their club had seven players who were members of the national team that won the World Cup, including their captain Martin Johnson. He sometimes trained with me and after training breaks, the two of us, and others played games on PlayStation, which I found very interesting.”
Rugby – known as olive ball in Chinese – has made huge strides in the country since Sevens became an Olympic sport, opening up new funding opportunities.
Nevertheless, despite the vast pool of athletic talent available, Zhang accepts that his country is still decades behind the leading nations such as New Zealand, South Africa, France and England.
“Their physical ability and speed, especially speed, are very good. But the disadvantage is that because they all come to the game halfway through childhood their skill and tactical level ability is quite different from the highlevel players abroad,” Zhang notes. “Because in the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand their children can have started playing rugby at the age of three or four.”
However, as the sport matures in China, a generation of former players are giving back in terms of time and money for training and helping to address the development deficit, Zhang says.
Zhang’s time in England cemented his reputation as China’s greatest-ever player. But it nearly didn’t happen. He says that in China, it was unusual for passengers to wear seatbelts at the time, but he happened to strap in when the black Mercedes picked him up. At the accident at a busy junction, Zhang believes he would have smashed through the windscreen had he not. As it was, he escaped with a deep cut to his leg but without a ride to Leicester. After a brief discussion, Zhang ended up taking a black cab for the 165km ride to Leicester.
Arriving in Leicester at 1am, he was met by the club’s chairman, former England captain Peter Wheeler who set him up in a hotel.
Zhang had been expecting the bad weather – “everyone knows in England it rains 280 days out of 365,” he jokes. But he wasn’t ready for the change of pace. Back home he had been training at 3pm doing ball skills before spending an hour or so working on strength in the gym.
In Leicester, the sessions started at 8.30 in the morning and players were free to leave after 8.00 in the evening and it wasn’t just the timings that were different, according to Zhang.
“They yelled at the top of their lungs while training. You see, our gym [in China] has that kind of calm background music, and then occasionally you may hear some people grunt or gasp. When you’re training in their gym it’s like in a vegetable market or slaughterhouse … some wear clothes and others are shirtless showing off their powerful muscles. The feeling was very impactful – that is to say, the atmosphere of training is really different from the training of athletes in China!
“I wasn’t comfortable with it for about a week because I wasn’t comfortable with this training rhythm all day. You didn’t practice all day in China, but after a week, I got used to it and, after returning from the UK after more than a month, my strength improved a lot. They were also very focused on working on the mindset of young players. One time I just finished training and came out for a short break, it happened to be raining, and it was very cold, but the kids were playing games covered in mud so you couldn’t recognise them. But unless the coach says stop the, kids continue to play.
“I think if parents of children in China are willing to let their children train like this, Chinese rugby will surely develop very quickly.”
Zhang remembers vividly his reception at Welford Road, Leicester’s stadium where he was presented to the crowd at half-time. “The men, women and children from the whole city were there. Some were holding babies, pushing prams, walking, some with a stick and all were wearing the red and green kit and they poured like a flood into the ground,” he recalls.
And now Zhang is back at the China Agricultural University where he learned to play rugby and now acts as head coach, there is one thing he misses from his days in England – the breakfasts.
“The English breakfast was the best. Bacon, sausage, with egg, all added together, I think it’s delicious. I can’t get enough of it!”
“The English breakfast was the best. I think it’s delicious”